


there are so many words (i don't know a damn one)

by FaileGaidin



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 09:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaileGaidin/pseuds/FaileGaidin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It sounds way too kindergarten, but Steve doesn't know how to use his words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there are so many words (i don't know a damn one)

There are times he absolutely envies Danny. It's not just the fact that Danny has this big family that gets together for holidays, loud and warm and wonderful, or the fact that he has a daughter that loves him more than anything else in the world. What Steve envies sometimes is his partner's ability to communicate. Sure, it might be yelling more often than not, with wild hand gestures that could put out an eye if you weren't careful, but it was still better than what he had. As kindergarten as it sounded, Steve still didn't know how to use his words and the very idea of actually telling a person how much they meant to him made his chest tighten and his vision tunnel just slightly.

(Which was ridiculous. He was a Navy SEAL and the leader of an elite task force. Sharing his feelings should not give him a damn panic attack.)

But it did. Which meant that instead of words, Steve tried to use his actions. He couldn't tell Danny that he was his best friend, that some days he was the only thing that kept Steve from crashing into such a dark place that there was no way he was getting back out of it. So instead he wiggled his way into the man's life, adopted his daughter as his niece, and made sure that Danny realized he was never going to be alone, no matter what life threw at him.

(He thought it was okay that he couldn't tell Chin how much he appreciated him, how much he relied on his calm collectedness. That was the great thing about Chin. They could look at each other, Steve could nod, and everything would be understood. Why couldn't everything be that easy?)

All of this also meant that he couldn't explain to Kono how he felt about her. So instead of telling her, he kissed her. Instead of pouring out his heart, he made love to her. Instead of having a conversation about where their relationship was going, he joined her in the shower and held her as she fell asleep and pressed a kiss to her hair before getting up for his swim in the mornings.

And she never pushed. She didn't freak out when Catherine came back, because she knew it was her bed he'd be sleeping in that night. Even without him saying anything of substance, she had a quiet confidence about where they stood in each others' lives, and it was just one more thing that he loved about her.

She deserved more, though.

Because the words were there, dammit. They got caught somewhere between his chest and the back of his throat, threatening to choke him or drown him or burn him from the inside out. Sometimes his hands would shake from the sheer effort of trying to balance his need to tell her with his complete inability to do so and he wondered how on earth he was functioning as an adult human being if he couldn't tell the woman he shared everything with that he loved her. Danny would call him pathetic.

(He wouldn't be wrong.)

He couldn't use the L-word (but God he wanted to, for the first time). For about two hours he toyed with the idea of just buying her a ring, because it was Kono and she would understand, but then he realized that he would have to kick his own ass. You had to tell a woman you loved her before you asked her to marry you. There were rules, and though he wasn't usually a big fan of them, some were more important than others.

(And he was pretty sure he didn't deserve to have Kono as his wife if he couldn't say a three-letter sentence with a stupid four-letter word that was completely and utterly true.)

He had to tell her something, though. He had to take a step forward, even if it was only half a baby step and he needed someone to hold his hand.

"Hey," he said one night as they were making dinner.

Kono looked up and smiled at him, her hair up and pieces were dancing across her neck. "Yeah?"

"I, uh...I want you to stay with me."

(That was awful. That was not the way that was supposed to come out. How could someone suck this much at interpersonal communication?)

She gave him a strange look. "I was planning on it."

He could still salvage this. Fighting the urge to just back away from it, he cleared his throat and stirred the rice. "I wasn't just talking about tonight."

Kono smiled, leaning in to press a kiss to his shoulder. "I know."

(She really was perfect.)


End file.
